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The Black Hack Second Edition |
$6.00 |
Average Rating:4.8 / 5 |
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Backed on KS for a PDF copy, THEN bought the dead tree version: this is how much I love this game. I like to think of it as “my” Fifth Edition, because it keeps everything I liked about BECMI (my first iteration of D&D) and imports just enough of the streamlined mechanics cool kids love so much these days.
Seriously, Advantage/Disadvantage is convenient, the Encumbrance rules are simplified but still matter, and yet you also have those beautiful random generators for dungeons, wilderness, encounters that I had in my old booklets.
I think some people who criticize TBH2e here slightly mischaracterize it: it is not a retroclone of anything, and it is debatable if it is even strictly speaking OSR. Yes, it is more survivable. Yes, it has playbooks for chargen like a PbtA game. But still gives you the old D&D gonzo, random, resource scarcity experience. Bravo.
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I bought The Black Hack 2e out of masochistic curiosity because it was advertised with many reviews as a popular “rules lite” "keep-it-simple-stupid" streamlined yet comprehensive & eccentric Old School Renaissance DnD retro-alternative. I wanted to find out why it was popular and how it was organized. I am not disappointed for those purposes. However, I’m still wrapping my head around what’s in it worth integrating in my DnD homebrew from blackhack 2e. Some of the tables are ridiculous. Fore example In the “MONSTERS & OPPONENTS A GUIDE TO CREATURE ENCOUNTERS” there are 2 1d6 tables for “THEY ARE” & “WITH” for every monster. Some of that is kitsch, tacky, raunchy and as lame as the blotchy grotesque artwork. For example the entry for Humans if you roll 2,2 THEY ARE “Making rubbings of things” WITH “a Pig in a Dress” Every bizarre random table with limited possibilities is just begging the DM to go WTF? and write their own result tables with way more results. Its a book that appeals to the RPG person who is either content with the kitsch or thrives on being agitated by that kitsch satire to write and make his own. I can’t honestly say I would ever want to participate in this game by the book.
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Picked it up a couple weeks ago and am now running a game on a Monday over the internet. It is exactly what the doctor ordered - straightfoward rules, capturing the feel of old school B/X D&D but with enough modern elements to make it distinct. Also undead spacemen.
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Fantastic, streamlined, simple and hackable. The artwork, the design, everything encourages you to pick up RPG and just play. I love this one to bits.
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My go-to OSR game out there, it has just the right feel for me, and works just as well with more serious or sillier tones. I defeinitely got more than I bargained for, but in a good way.
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Still as relevant in 2020 as the day it came out. This OSR is a classic among the hacking community. Many OSR systems have been created based on this ruleset. This book has tons of applicable GM advice, monsters, and optional rules. The amount of add-ons for TBH is also amazing. I purchased The Unearthed Hack as well, I recommend you do the same to use it as an "expansion pack"
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I have pushed 3.5e, 5e, and several retro-clones on my firends. They now ask for The Black Hack by name. Every group I introduce to this game has a common response: that was FUN!
This is a game to be played. For my taste, many other rules systems are more interesting to read and think about and many other books are much nicer to hold and look at. But no other game in this space has produced such a positive response from my players.
I would wholeheartedly recommed these rules to anyone interested in "D&D" without reservations.
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So I like the system! I really really do but it's got some MAJOR flaws with it. After about 1 and a half campaigns that I've run now, I've had issues that both infuriate me and my players. First off, combat is swift and EASY!! First level can be a bit of a challenge if you're unlucky with rolls, otherwise there is hardly any threat of death if your character has armor. The armor system is novel, makes sense, and gives armor purpose but it is severely over powered. Each piece has an armor value of 1-3 i think, each value can deflect 100% of damage at the expense of 1 value. 100%!!!!! Warriors can have up to 4 at lvl 1, that means they can take 4 straight hits before taking damage!!! Speaking of warriors, they can attack a number of times equal to their HD!! At lvl 3-4, they are knocking out combat encounters by the second turn, First turn if your party has 2 warriors! Virtually every other class is useless, for combat anyways, as the warrior will out do even the wizards in damage ever... single... turn! The other classes are only useful in RP scenarios.
I like the monsters! They're easy to make and adjust to whatever level you need them to be. Though their skills are not consistent with the rules. For example there are monster attacks that call for DEX saves when the system says to roll on STR for close combat. Well this is close combat and now my players are wondering why I'm making them roll for DEX. It's inconsistent and my players are constantly confused.
The only thing consistent about this system is the damage players do. Warriors will always do 1d6 per hit, Clerics will always hit 1d6, thieves hit for 1d6, and wizards hit for 1d4. It never changes no matter what weapon they carry which kind of makes weapons cosmetic only (there is unarmed damage but whatever).
I know I'm complaining about combat and OSR games aren't supposed to be all about combat, but I could do nothing to make the players feel threatened by combat and combat turned into their easy way out of any situation. It's that laughably mundane and easy for them. Sadly I may be moving on to another system, and I suggest you all do the same, or go back to the first edition. I'm sorry but this system lacks any sort of longevity.
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Fun very simple RPG. The core of the rules are about 30 pages with a bunch of fun tables taking up the bulk of the book such as random dungeons, NPCs and a bestiary of monster stats.
I used it with a group whose primarily only played D&D 5e. We were able to character creation, rules explanations and start playing in about a half hour.
Since the rules are so so simple and sparse, it leaves a lot of on the fly decisions for the GM. My players complained about a lot of stuff before the game started but once they got into the game they had no problems with it. They were just used to playing 5e superheroes and not used to having a character with 2 hit points and (in their eyes) low attributes.
Another problem/feature (depending how you look at it) with the sparse rules is that there is a lot of stuff not included, but the author even says that this is meant to be "hacked" to add stuff in. For example, I wanted there to be a better ranged combatant so I created a ranger class that (I think) is balanced in about a half hour.
The layout of the book is great. A character can have everything including the rules for their abilities on the front and back of a sheet. All topics seem to be laid out so that you don't have to flip pages. For example, a topic may start on the left page but will wrap up on the bottom of the right page.
I love the art work and even if the game was atrocious I'd have given it a free star just for the logo.
I definitely recommend the game and hope to play it again. If you have friends you want to introduce to tabletop RPGs, but think they might be overwhelmed by D&D, give this a shot.
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I've said this a hundred times on Reddit, but TBH went from a really neat RPG (1E) to my favorite OSR ever published in 2E. I don't know if you've got more in store for the future or not, but I hope there will be more to come.
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The organization, layout and visual presentation are perfect. A lot of the rules are great and innovative. But I have one problem: 2nd edition tries to "fix" the armor rules from the 1st edition, and it makes things worse. Now, your armor is rated with an Armor Value, which give is an equivalent pool of D6 Armor Dice. Characters "burn" these dice to ignore the damage of a hit, and after a short rest, they roll these dice to see if they recover. On a roll higher than the AV, the die recovers. Otherwise, you'll have to repair it later.
Got that? So now your armor has several separate stats you have to track, because most of them change:
- Armor Value: This one doesn't change, at least.
- Broken Dice: The number of dice that have been spent to negate damage.
- Damaged Dice: The number of Broken Dice which did not recover when given a chance.
So now we're tracking all kinds of armor information. Plus, if you're wearing plate, then you probably need to get repairs every other fight, since these mechanics cause it to be worse at recovering than less protective armor. Not exactly the lightweight and intuitive experience that TBH otherwise provides.
Still, it's easy enough to use the old rules for armor, or substitute whatever you like. I like the idea of using an armor usage die.
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Probably the current pinnacle of OSR design.
Take a look at the preview. It gives a pretty good idea of how concise it is; the example of play illustrates the basic mechanics of the game within a very short space. It sold me on the game in a minute or two. The rest of the book is equally good, if not better.
The game has a few basic mechanics that it uses for everything. It is streamlined without being too simplistic (in my opinion, at least). The simplicity of its part guarantees that it's easy to hack and add house rules to, even if you're not too much into game design. Even the 78 spells fit on two pages.
The simplicity means that it's not for everyone. The spells are a good example. Because most spells' effects are described with one sentence, the game can't define the fictional content or detailed mechanical restrictions for them. Beginning GMs might find it difficult, and it certainly isn't suited for groups that want intricate mechanics or protection from arbitrary and unfair GMs. But for groups that trust one another and want to do all that work for themselves, it's a beautifully simple and open design.
The basic rules take up 30 pages or so, and the rest is filled to the brim with useful random tables and other rules and tools for the GM. You can read the whole thing fast, but keep using it for a long, long time. Because make no mistake, this is a book to be USED. But it still doesn't feel like a dry technical manual.
I believe the book suits a GM who is comfortable with improvisation. You don't need to everything alone - the mountain of random tables ensures that. But still, the tables only give you ideas and ways out of dead ends, instead of doing the work for you. It does require some effort and being comfortable at making stuff up on the fly; on the other hand, it ensures a surprising and rewarding experience for the GM as well.
I can't recommend this highly enough. You get an amazing product for a ridiculously low price.
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The Black Hack's original iteration started a new sect of the OSR/DIY D&D movement and became one of the most hacked games since D&D.
However, the original TBH made a lot of compromises to speed up play. Some of the rules were weird and wonky, and on top of that, the game made odd decisions for the sake of uniqueness (I mean, let's be honest, calling Wizards "Conjurers" was...interesting)
I think the slightly odd rules almost demanded that each table tailor the game to their liking. Which in a way has its own merits. But out with the old and in with the new.
Simply put, this new rendition of The Black Hack is a masterclass in design. Not a single rule made me scratch my head. Each page made me nod in agreement. The armor rules are awesome. The class abilities are great. The leveling system is fresh and will make sessions way more fun. And adding backgrounds finally brings TBH up to Whitehack's level of worldbuilding. So much amazingness in just the first 20 pages!
The art, the Game Master sections, and everything else are not just functional, they're wonderful. The page layout is so good it makes me emotional. This book is full of tools, tables, generators, and much more. $6.00 is a ludicrously low price for what you're getting.
If you want to try simpler D&D, look no further.
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First, an interlude. Skip to paragraph 2 for the punchline. My favourite edition of D&D is Moldvay Basic, the one between the Holmes and Mentzer editions. It was much clearer and more complete that Holmes, but much more concise and generously writen than the more wordy and better known Mentzer edition. Your characters were properly heroic. Can your character ride a horse? Just note how you learned to do so on the character sheet. Want to be able to swim, or navigate or helm a ship? No problem. Then there was the 'you can try anything' rule in the GMs advice section. If there isn't a rule for something you want your character to try, just roll 1D20 against an appropriate stat and try to roll lower, maybe with a modifier. Just like that, D&D got a general purpose task resolution system that made it a truly flexible, heroic system. But it was not to be, Mentzer and AD&D crushed the game under the "If it's not on your character sheet, you can't do it" ethos of doling out permission to be able to try to do things via feats and profficiencies.
The Black Hack jumps the tracks of the whole OD&D, OSR movement into an alternate timeline where this simple attribute check based mechanic from one edition of Basic D&D becomes the hart of the game. It's not just dialing the clock back to that key moment, it takes us back to the future again with a carefully judged selection of fun new little tools and mechanics to create a tight, minimalist but very capable system. It has the equivalent of feats and such, but rather than grant permission to try at all, they make it easier to succeed. Now that's how you do it! First edition was very spare, but the second edition clarifies and organises the system and adds a host of support meterial that make it into a complete game and great value for money.
I've no idea if David Black even knows about Moldvay D&D and that cute little rule, no reason why he should. What he's built here stands on it's own as easily my favourite of the OD&D/OSR games.
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Everything I loved about the first ruleset has been improved with this new edition. The DM section takes up about 3/4 of the book and is chock full of inspiration, tables to roll on for fun twists, and excellent suggestions for running the game.
My top three favorite new things: Advantage and Disadvantage for more than just attack rolls, fluctuating prices when shopping, and simplified spells and spell slots for magic users.
For six bucks you are getting a real deal. Buy. This. Book.
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